Intro to Product Management
Learn the basics of product management and explore key skills for your PM career start.
Welcome to your beautiful journey into a product management career!
Before diving deeper into the day-to-day job of product management and learning hard skills, let's first explore what exactly a Product Manager (PM) is — and why this role exists in the first place.
Who is a Product Manager?
In essence, a Product Manager plays a central role in the company, bearing responsibility for the success of a specific product.
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There’s been extensive debate about what exactly a product manager does and the responsibilities of this role. However, these resources provide some of the clearest insights:
- What is Product Management? — by Lenny Rachitsky
- A Product Manager’s Job — by Josh Elman
- Brian Chesky’s take on Product Management — Airbnb CEO
- Leading Through Uncertainty — Brian Chesky (YouTube)
- Brian Chesky’s Changing Product Philosophy — Medium
Basic Skills You Need to Start Your Career
Let’s break the PM skillset into two main categories:
- Soft skills (communication, leadership, empathy)
- Hard skills (analytics, business understanding, UX fundamentals)
Both are equally important to your success.
- 3 Skills to be an Awesome Product Leader — by Tami Reiss
- Essential Soft Skills for PMs — by Lenny Rachitsky
- The Technical, Business, and UX Skills Every Product Manager Needs (video)
This is your foundation — a starting point to understand what product management truly means before diving deeper into the PM Core Activities.
